Bridging science and religion
This is one in a series of profiles showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates. Shelley Brown was pointing toward a life of cutting-edge stem cell research. Then one day in 2010, she says, she encountered the divine. “Something was moving, and I thought I must have hit the petri dish by accident,” said Brown, who had been trying to direct a set of stem cells toward bone cells during her Ph.D. work in biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan. “When I looked closer under the microscope, I realized the cells were beating. They had spontaneously differentiated into electrically coupled, beating heart cells. That’s when I felt at the mercy of God, and that’s when I decided to become a Christian.” The revelation sent Brown on a mission to explore the complicated intersection of religion and embryonic stem cell science in tandem. She went straight from her thesis defense to Harvard Divinity School...